Jefferson County clerk faces manual check of 23,000 handwritten ballots
Election officials must verify name spellings by hand before Tuesday's certification deadline.
By Ryan Davidson ·
Jefferson County Clerk David Yates is facing a labor intensive task as his office counts more than 23,000 write-in votes across local races. The manual verification process is the main delay in finalizing results for the November election.
Only three candidates filed the required paperwork to register as approved write-in options. Jeff Yocum, a candidate for mayor, is among those three. Yates noted that candidates must list multiple spelling variations on their registration forms to account for potential voter typos.
Two election workers must examine each ballot to determine if it is valid. Yates described the process, stating that staff members click through the votes and look for matches against the registered name variations. "If they see anything that even looks like it, then they'll look at that name and they'll see if it's one of the nine variations they put in place. If it is, it gets counted. If it's not, then they have to move forward," Yates said.
The office is working to meet a strict legal deadline. Kentucky law requires the results to be certified to the Secretary of State's Office by Tuesday, Nov. 10. Clear winners have already emerged in most other races, but the write-in totals will not be finalized until every handwritten entry is manually checked against the official list.
